The self-portrait that fades

Year: 2026
Medium: Installation: wood, oil on canvas and on glass, water, clock and mechanism
Size: ≈ 300 × 85 × 85 cm
Series: Installation in progress

A wooden booth with four doors and a dome with a clock showing the real time. The doors open one after another, announced by a bell, guiding the visitor around the booth: behind each one there is a painting. A man walks away along a road by day; then by night; then the road is empty. The last door, the glass door, reveals the man sitting in the rain, painted on a glass pane onto which water falls endlessly, slowly blurring him. The self-portrait not as a fixed image, but as something that time and water keep erasing.

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The mechanism

How it works

0:00The large bell rings. A few seconds later door 1 (by day) opens.
2:00Small bell. Door 1 closes and door 2 (by night) opens.
4:00Small bell. Door 2 closes and door 3 (the empty road) opens.
6:00Small bell. The glass door opens: water over the man in the rain. It stays open for 3 minutes.
9:00Large bell. All doors close: a 5-minute pause.
14:00It starts again.

The route: The doors open in order around the booth (1, 2, 3 and the glass door): visitors follow them and walk around the work until they reach the glass. Each door stays open for 2 minutes; the glass door, 3.
The bells: A large, deep bell announces the beginning —the first door waits for it to ring— and the closing of all doors. A small, softer bell announces each of the other doors.
The water: A closed circuit: a pump submerged in the metal tray lifts the water through a pipe to the top of the glass; from there it falls endlessly down the painted glass and back into the tray. The water is not seen until the last door opens; before that it can only be heard.
The clock: The dome clock shows the real time, above the glass door: the viewer's time against the time that erases the self-portrait.

To build it

Wooden booth, 85 × 85 cm footprint and about 3 m high including the dome; four panelled doors of 68 × 190 cm.
Three oil paintings on canvas (62 × 184 cm) behind doors 1, 2 and 3; oil on glass (59 × 157 cm) behind door 4.
Four silent door openers (motor with arm), a programmable timer that controls the doors and bells, and two bells (or a hidden speaker playing their sound).
Submersible water pump, 60 × 24 cm metal tray, perforated pipe above the glass, and a varnish that protects the oil paint from the water.
26 cm dial clock with quartz movement, on the side of the dome above the glass door.

In the 3D model above, “Play the mechanism with sound” shows the full cycle sped up: the bells, each door opening to reveal its image, and the water on the glass.

Series

Installation in progress

The glass2026 · Fountain sculpture: stone (marble), resin glass and circulating red liquid